Almohad Caliphate

The Almohad Caliphate was a Moorish caliphate that existed in North Africa and the Iberian Peninsula from 1121 to 1269, with Marrakesh serving as its African capital and Seville serving as its Spanish capital. The Almohads were founded by Ibn Tumart of the Masmuda tribes of the Maghreb, and in 1147 they overthrew the Almoravids governing Morocco. By 1172, all of Islamic Iberia was under Almohad rule, and its dominance would last for forty years. In 1212, the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa ended in a crushing defeat at the hands of King Alfonso VIII of Castile, Sancho VII of Navare, and Pere II of Aragon, and the great cities of the Moors would fall to the Christians soon after. Cordoba fell in 1236 and Seville in 1248, and nearly all of the Moorish dominions in Spain were lost. Spain was once more divided into taifas (city-states), and Caliph Idris al-Wathiq's assassination by a slave in 1269 led to the rise of the Marinids and the fall of the Almohads.